{"id":3122,"date":"2012-04-19T07:31:22","date_gmt":"2012-04-19T12:31:22","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.ludwig-van.com\/?p=3122"},"modified":"2012-04-19T07:31:22","modified_gmt":"2012-04-19T12:31:22","slug":"forget-the-narrative-and-give-us-an-energy-transfer-say-brooklyn-eroica-mixologists","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.ludwig-van.com\/toronto\/2012\/04\/19\/forget-the-narrative-and-give-us-an-energy-transfer-say-brooklyn-eroica-mixologists\/","title":{"rendered":"Forget the narrative and give us an energy transfer, say Brooklyn Eroica mixologists"},"content":{"rendered":"

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Among the many things I say that get blank stares from my piano students is an insistence that they treat a piece of music as a narrative that uses the rhetoric of pacing, suspense, modulations of speed and emotion, creative use of silence, and so on.<\/p>\n

I’ve been puzzled by their obliviousness to — and seeming disinterest in — the mechanics of narrative, even if they involve Hollywood movies or Harry Potter novels.<\/p>\n

Then, this morning, I hear the winner of the Brooklyn Symphony Orchestra’s Beethoven Remix Project and the light goes on.<\/p>\n

Like pretty much every other classical music presenter on the continent, the Brooklyners are trying to connect with younger, non-classical audiences. Their latest endeavour, a remix competition for the final movement of Beethoven’s Symphony No. 3<\/em>, netted a winning entry yesterday, where the DJ superimposed two high-powered passages, giving the resulting 5-minute piece an insistent, tutti thrum.<\/p>\n

This isn’t musical narrative, this is a transfer of energy or an attempt to generate an adrenaline rush.<\/p>\n

It’s the musical equivalent of snipping together a sequence of car chases or gunfights.<\/p>\n

I encourage you to listen to the resuts from the five very different finalists here<\/a>. (For example, I think Boima Tucker’s entry is far, far more interesting in its textures and its ability to convey a narrative. A group of students at\u00a0Brooklyn Community Arts & Media High School, who call themselves Swaggbrarians, have created something that’s as much Lonard Bernstein Mambo<\/em> as it is Beethoven Eroica<\/em>.)<\/p>\n

Are exercises like this one going to revolutionize the classical concert hall?<\/p>\n

No. In fact, it will all be well-intentioned fizzle.<\/p>\n

DJ Eddie Marz’s winning Eroica Remix is all about a cavernous dance club, darkness punctuated by flashing lights, mood-enhancing substances and sweaty bodies moving to the thrall of a strange brew of energy that the DJ’s hard work keeps on the boil.<\/p>\n

Pull Marz out of that time and place, and the brew is never given a chance to reach boiling point.<\/p>\n

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Bedford-Stuyvesant Restoration Plaza<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

The Brooklyn Phil is presenting the Remix on June 9 in a free concert at Bedford-Stuyvesant Restoration Plaza, as part of a programme that is very much an urban, 21st century re-do of an orchestral pops concert.<\/p>\n

How else can you explain elements as disparate as Mos Def, Leslie Uggams, a youth string orchestra and the music of Cole Porter and Harold Arlen?<\/p>\n

The finale from Beethoven’s Eroica<\/em> opens the outdoor concert, followed by the winning remix. Then it’s on to a Lena Horne tribute, and DJ Eddie Marz will, more likely than not, will be carting his stacks of vinyl off to do some more sustained energy work somewhere else.<\/p>\n

In the process, any sense of the Finale of Beethoven’s symphony being a piece of musical narrative is left by the wayside, as is any sense of the Finale itself being the culmination of a much larger and more complex work.<\/p>\n

Where does that leave the symphony orchestra — and Beethoven?<\/p>\n

John Terauds<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Among the many things I say that get blank stares from my piano students is an insistence that they treat a piece of music as a narrative that uses the rhetoric of pacing, suspense, modulations of speed and emotion, creative use of silence, and so on. I’ve been puzzled by their obliviousness to — and […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":3126,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[19,31,36,39,49,60],"tags":[6450,483,488,578,857,1057],"yst_prominent_words":[],"acf":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/www.ludwig-van.com\/toronto\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/2\/2012\/04\/plaza.jpg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p9bakr-Om","amp_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ludwig-van.com\/toronto\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3122"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ludwig-van.com\/toronto\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ludwig-van.com\/toronto\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ludwig-van.com\/toronto\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ludwig-van.com\/toronto\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3122"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.ludwig-van.com\/toronto\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3122\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ludwig-van.com\/toronto\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/3126"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ludwig-van.com\/toronto\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3122"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ludwig-van.com\/toronto\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3122"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ludwig-van.com\/toronto\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3122"},{"taxonomy":"yst_prominent_words","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ludwig-van.com\/toronto\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/yst_prominent_words?post=3122"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}